Teachers struggling to claim medical expenses refund

Islamabad

Many teachers of Islamabad’s government colleges, mostly suffering from serious health problems, are in distress. The reason is that the office of the Accountant General Pakistan Revenues hasn’t been processing the formal claims of refunds on their medical expenses for a long time.

In some cases, the clearance of ‘medical reimbursement bills’ has been awaited for around a year to the misery of the teachers needing the regular, costly treatment for hepatitis, cancer and heart stroke.

The FDE overseen by the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) regulates all government schools and colleges in Islamabad Capital Territory. Like other government departments and agencies, it submits its bills to the AGPR for clearance needed for the payment or reimbursement of money.

An AGPR official insists the rules don’t accept the inappropriate manner in which the FDE put up the teachers’ claims of medical expenditure refunds. “We’re not to blame at all. The reimbursement bills of the teachers holding BPS-17 and above were rejected by us as they weren’t countersigned by a BPS-19 FDE drawing and disbursing officer as required by the rules,” he told this scribe.

The official said if the bills were put up to the AGPR in line with the rules, they would be cleared in the shortest possible time. An official of the FDE confirmed the claim saying the directorate has a BPS-16 DDO to verify the medical bills of teachers in BS-16 or below but he, though not allowed by the rules, also acts as a ‘countersigning officer’ to process the expenses refund claims of the teachers of BPS-17 and above.

He said all such medical reimbursement bills submitted to the AGPR were returned as ‘unpassed’ but the relevant FDE officials didn’t take the corrective measures. The official acknowledged that the teachers, mostly patients of serious diseases like hepatitis, cancer and heart stroke, were struggling to continue with the costly treatment, especially medicines.

Some teachers claimed they approached the relevant FDE officials, including a director, for the long-awaited verification of their bills but unfortunately, they offered no help saying they’re not empowered to do the sought-after task.

They said though empowered to appoint a deputy secretary or some BPS-19 officer for countersigning such bills, the CADD, too, was regrettably indifferent to their misery. Islamabad Model Postgraduate College H-8 lecturer Iqrar Habib said he was a cancer patient and had been driven from pillar to post to claim refunds on his medical expenses.

“I desperately need money but all my repeated attempts to get medical reimbursement bills cleared (by the AGPR) have so far been unsuccessful. It is almost impossible for me to continue with the treatment due to my limited income. Ironically, my repeated requests to the FDE officials concerned for help have also fallen on deaf ears,” he said.

Assistant Professor Muhammad Ashraf of the Islamabad Model College for Boys H-9 said he suffered from hepatitis C and his treatment expenditure refund claim had been pending the AGPR clearance for six months over the bill countersigning issue.

“The medical expense reimbursement is a facility for the government servants suffering from critical health problems but it has long been denied to Islamabad’s college teachers,” he complained.

Assistant Professor Javed Iqbal Gondal of the IMPC H-8 said his father died in December 2016 and the bill for the reimbursement of his treatment expenditure were returned by the AGPR for being signed by an FDE official not authorised to do so.

He feared the failure of both FDE and AGPR to sort out the issue would lead to the lapse of the directorate’s medical expense reimbursement budget allocated for the current fiscal, whose end was just three months away.

A woman college teacher wondered how the FDE, a public sector organisation, couldn’t know the government rules about the medical reimbursement bills. She said if teachers were distressed and that, too, for not fault of theirs, the students would be the ultimate sufferers and as a result, the government’s bids for educational reforms in the capital wouldn’t bear fruit.

The teacher requested the CADD secretary to step in and ensure the immediate appointment of a BPS-19 DDO to the FDE for the early clearance of the teachers’ expense refund claims. When contacted, FDE Director (Colleges) Zulfiqar Ali Rao even denied the existence of the issue. “To my knowledge, there exists no such issue, but even if there is any, the teachers should come to me. I will ensure necessary action on their complaints,” he added.